First Aid Kit: “We think music should help you through your everyday life.”

After playing SXSW in Austin earlier this year, First Aid Kit returned for ACL, this time with the added pressure of being named one of the festival's highly hyped newcomers--not that the pressure is getting to them.

“This is our second tour in the States,” the duo told us. “We’re just really happy to be back. We’re going to do the best that we can and we can’t really do anything else. We’re having the best time.”

The Swedish sisters, Clara and Johanna, have been creating folk-pop harmonies together since 2007. Some of their influences include Joanna Newsom, Jenny Lewis, Karen Dalton and Laura Marling, but their feelings about music are summed up in their name: “We think music should help you through your everyday life, because that’s what it does for us. And so when we decided we wanted to make music, we wanted to have a name that stands for that, because that’s what we think music should be.”

The duo isn’t big on working out–though they joked about buying tracksuits for the band so they could hit the hotel fitness rooms together–but they often take long walks for exercise, a habit that started at home in Stockholm. “In Sweden, we walk everywhere. If you want to go to the store, we take a walk for 20 minutes or a half hour. Why not?” they told us.

As for eating right, their trick is moderation. “On our rider, its just fruit and nuts, because if we put anything else on, we’ll eat it,” they admitted. “So we just say no, don’t put it there. It’s so hard when it’s there in front of you and you can just take it. In America, the portions are huge, and we have this thing from Sweden where you don’t leave anything on your plate because that’s just rude. We do that here and we feel so bad afterwards, so we’re learning you don’t actually have to eat everything in front of you.”